The loss of hearing can lead to isolation, depression and anxiety

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depression, ears, health, hearing aid, hearing loss, HSE, issues, loss of hearing, mental health issues

Talking to our families over dinner, chatting to a friend on the phone, listening to the news on the radio, asking the shop assistant for help or a stranger on the street for directions are all things we do without thinking about them. But what if you didn’t quite understand what others were saying, what if the world around you was becoming more and more silent every day?
For many this isn’t a hypothetical scenario and if you are aged 55 plus you may already be experiencing gradual hearing loss, if you are over 65 there is even a 50/50 chance that you already need a hearing aid.
There are over half a million over 65 year-olds in Ireland, and this figure is continually rising, and 50% or more of them suffer from loss of hearing, some more than others.
But while 91% of people have their eyes tested on a regular basis throughout their lives, only 9% have their hearing checked, so a recent study by Hidden Hearing.  The result of this neglect is that, on average, people get a hearing aid fitted about ten years too late.
“Testing early is important, as that way we can establish a baseline”, explains audiologist Leona Kane from MacNally Hearing, “hearing loss happens so gradually that it becomes the norm. But if we have a baseline we can see what the person used to be able to hear and fit them with a starter hearing aid early on.”
Many associate hearing loss with aging, so a big reason, for many, to not have their ears tested is vanity, believing that if they need help hearing that makes them old. This stigma however isn’t attached to glasses, most people just expect that they need some support to read, watch T.V and drive, if not at a young age, most likely as they grow older.  But the loss of hearing has a much higher impact on individuals than loss of sight actually does.
“We are very neglectful of our hearing,” Leona Kane points out “and we really should be more proactive about it.”
When you can’t hear, follow a conversation or hear something or someone approaching this can lead, and does in many cases, to isolation, loss of communication and even anxiety. People start staying home more, trying to take part in everyday life becomes hard work and stressful, tiring them out as they strain to follow what people around them are saying, so they avoid situations that make them feel uncomfortable.
Brendan Lennon from DeafHear is involved in several research projects and says that: ”People start believing others are mumbling as they lose the ability to hear sound such as ‘S’ or ‘K’, high frequency sounds that help us distinguish words from each other. On the other side, people think their parents, grandparents, and friends are changing their personalities, become irritable and grouchy, always giving out, asking them to speak up, speak clearly, turning the T.V up too loud and shouting at them.”
This combination of being unable to follow conversations and not being able to partake in them leads to isolation, and this in turn can even lead to other, bigger issues.
If you can’t hear your brain begins to forget how to process certain sounds, so when you do eventually get a hearing aid the aftercare is vital. No one expects to get out up and walk if they haven’t in years, you need help and rehabilitation to regain your strength and practice your muscles. Hearing works in a similar way; you need to train your brain to hear different sounds.
Audiologist Dolores Madden from Hidden Hearing explains: “All patients should have a custom build hearing aid, as people need individual testing and aftercare. So once we establish what is needed, we can accompany the on their rehabilitation journey. But the first step is testing!”
Of course there are costs involved, but the HSE does give up to €500 per ear if your PRSN enables you and your spouse to be part of the Treatment Benefit Scheme. This means if you have enough social insurance contributions this can help cover the cost of a hearing aid.
And as Dolores Madden says, “Can you put a price on hearing? After all it is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”
Just like Suduko and crosswords train your mind and keep it agile and fit, so does hearing.  Listening to a programme and processing new information helps your brain stay young, being able to take part in discussions helps your brain stay agile, so when you can’t hear and you forgo all these vital experiences your brain can slow down, in the worse cases even encourage dementia to set in earlier.
A large-scale clinical research project in Sweden discovered that the loss of hearing is the second largest medical condition that affects people’s lives. They found that the personality changes and psychological issues, such as depression and anxiety, were directly linked to hearing loss.
Early testing seems to be the only way forward.  So while the HSE did start a neo-natal screening programme at the beginning of 2014, it is 20 years behind most other European countries, and it does not target the age group loss of hearing most frequently concerns.
So while hearing loss may not be avoidable, testing early and regularly can ensure that you get the right aftercare.

Article I wrote for Upside Dublin October 2014

taking a break

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brain, brain functions, breaks, health, life stress, mental health issues, mental-health, miscellaneous, random, stress, stress research, well-being, work stress

It’s only been six weeks since the Christmas holidays but I need a break. I find myself yearning for a few lie ins, yearning for time to myself, visions of beaches flitting across my mind and daydreaming of running away and leaving my day-to-day behind.

Luckily for me next week is reading week, breaking up the term into two and giving me a week to catch up on corrections and de-stress for a few days. However I may only be swapping work-stress for leisure -stress as I will be off to Germany for a few days on Friday.

But even though I will be exchanging running from class to class to running from relative to relative and entertaining students to entertaining my one-and-a-half-year old nephew, I am removing myself from my daily routine, distracting myself from my work-life stress.

And while I still will be  daydreaming about a sunny isle and a cocktail with and umbrella in it, I am giving my mind a much needed break from dealing with my every-day stress. Funnily enough this is not only important for our well-being but for how we cope with stress.

Research has shown that our brain functions better when we allow it to relax after work. This is down to something called hormesis, a term used to describe the correlation inducing stress and then allowing an adequate time to relax. In sport this means you workout, put stress on your muscles followed by a period of rest, allowing your muscle to grow and strengthen.

The same thing applies to our brains. Studies have shown that neurons, those tiny building blocks that make up our nervous system, become more resistant if we apply the same idea. Periods of stress followed by periods of rest allow them to strengthen and help them ward of diseases like epilepsy, migraines and even dementia. Interestingly the thing that puts stress on neurons is something we do anyway, to more or less success, THINKING.

But to encourage the hardiness we need we also need to take breaks. Of course the most desired way of doing so is to pack a bag and fly away but since we don’t have enough possibilities to do so we are often left with more  affordable mini-break options. Sleep is one of them, since when we wander off into dreamland our brain can relax and recharge, but even reading a book, watching a film or investing time in our chosen hobby gives  the brain enough distraction from stress and strengths our nervous system. We just need to remember to keep taking those all important breaks.
So with Friday only two sleeps away I will just hold on to my tea-breaks for now and hope that my week long break will be enough to gear me up for the rest of the semester. With the words of the Roman poet Ovid

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

retro passion

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80s, coffee, collecting, hoarding, mental health issues, mental-health, miscellaneous, OCD, photography, psychology, retro

I am a collector, always have been, probably always will be. As a little girl my collections where stationary, pens and cats, as a teenager I had a passion for flavoured teas, multicolored scarves and fairy-tales. Now I don’t really have any one collection, although my shoe ornaments seem to be sprinting ahead, but I love a good find in a charity shop or a flea market rummage. Anything retro or a little off-beat can make my heart beat faster,  a smile spread involuntary from ear to ear and a warm glow steep  throughout my body. I think they call it a buyers rush, but for me it’s the joy of finding something with a story attached to it.

So when I was searching for an 80s inspired dress for my Pretty in Pink night out, I couldn’t believe my luck when I spied a bright red coffee pot and jug of the same era. The white Nescafe logo on red and simple lines are true to it’s early eighties origins and even though I don’t really drink coffee I think it is the perfect accessory for any breakfast table.

But while I was looking for the perfect place to store my newly washed crockery a thought occurred to me, when does collecting become hoarding? At what point does your attachment to things grow too strong, leaving you helpless and unable to part with the inanimate?

A British study from 2012 showed that a third of all adults collect something, but only  between 2-5% are actually hoarders. And while the world seems fascinated with this phenomenon, Hoarding, Buried Alive (my guilty pleasure) is now in its third year and 5th series, not many of us know very much about the condition.

The American Psychiatric Association is currently revising their  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, renaming it DSM-5 when it is published later this year. In it the association will name six criteria to help diagnose hoarders, hoping that this will create more awareness for the illness and encourage people to come forward.

Since many of us seem to have a passion for collecting here is a boiled down list of the newly defined hoarding criteria:

• Hoarding leaves the workplace and home so cluttered that it is rendered unusable and unlivable.
• No matter what the actual value of an item the afflicted is unable to discard or part with it.
• Discarding items causes extreme stress and persistent anxiety, encouraging the afflicted to save items.
• The individual experiences clinical stress and impairment in social, work and other areas of functioning, including maintaining a safe home and work environment
• Dementia is not the cause of this impairment, nor or any other medical conditions
• The hoarding is not part of another psychological disorder such as major depression or OCD

Through this list hoarding is now a stand-alone disorder, no longer attached to OCD. The authors of DSM-5 believe that hoarding can occur even without the obsessive compulsive side.

However since there is still no “diagnostic” criteria for collecting, making it hard to see when it begins to overlap with hoarding, I think for now I will just hope that my passion for retro is still within the boarders of ‘normal’. And as long as I can still see my floor and have space to put things away I think I am safe.

 

comfortable skin

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american academy of dermatology, chronic eczema, cronic disorder, eczema, health, itchy, mental health issues, mental-health, mis, psychology, random, skin

Today I am having a bit of a rough time, my skin is inflamed and the itchiness is driving me up the walls. As a life long sufferer of quite bad eczema this is not a new thing, I am quite use to outbursts of dermatitis every now and then, but this doesn’t makes it easier nor does it lessen my suffering.

But while I  was scratching my neck and rubbing my face I started wondering about the saying “being comfortable in your own skin”. Of course I know that doesn’t only mean that you are happy in your own body, but also means to be content with your mind and soul, but whoever came up with that saying didn’t know what eczema really feels like. And on days like today I’d rather be in anyone else’s skin but my own, sacrificing my mind for the joy of relief from itchiness.

I have always said (and stand by it) that I believe that itching can drive you mad, literally insane. And while I have no data to back up this statement,  just a little bit of research does show that the American Academy of Dermatology agrees on some level. The findings of studies they have done proves that people with chronic skin disorders are more likely to suffer from depression, think about suicide more often than non-sufferers and can also be more withdrawn from society, suffer from anger and lack confidence. And about 26% of people with chronic eczema can’t take part in many every-day activities, isolating them, sometimes even causing long-term unemployment.

A child growing up with the condition can develop low self-esteem and mental health issues, which is not surprising when you consider that more than one quarter of our self-esteem is built on our outer appearance. Call it vanity if you like, but our society does spend more on appearances than on health and education combined. So if you are carrying a blemish for all to see, your self-confidence takes a hit, which in turn effects your mental health.

So while the eczema may only be skin-deep the effects of it go beyond our outer walls,  not only is our skin scarred for life but our souls are too. And sadly our sallow society doesn’t do much to help in that matter either, if you don’t appear perfect you sadly seem to be worth less. And since I know the feeling I just hope all my fellow sufferers out there can believe that even when we feel anything put beautiful, we still are loved and beauty can truly be in the eye of the beholder. And I hope I can believe it too!